What we did in class. Most of you have collected your data and are ready to begin looking for patterns that will help you explore/answer your research question. In class tonight, we started by listening to Antoinette and Brian talk about their data and what they "saw" within the materials they were examining.
Antionette identified a number of thematic issues that connected literacy and economics in the conversations with her participants. For example, she saw issues with parents: (parents' need to work/lack of time, their lack of preparedness in terms of doing the "pre-teaching" that young children need, a relationship that valued reading and writing but did not necessarily "push" literacy as Antoinette put it (encourage children to go to school beyond high school. All three of these connected economic realities to literacy accomplishment - and therefore to the ability to move beyond the difficult economics where the children began.
Brian presented a discussion of methods for exploring differences in how Doc Holliday and Ike Canton were represented in transcripts, interviews, and materials written by the press (and others). His analysis will account for how and why these two men - who were both "ornery" - acquired very different "reputations" and personae within the public "lore." (did I get that right?)
Making sense of (messy and unfocused) data: After these presentations we briefly discussed several general approaches to finding patterns in your data. These patterns will be the basis of three to five solid observations about what your data "show" with respect to your research question. Your discussion of these observations - what they mean, your "proof" that they are indeed in your data, and how they answer your research question => will pretty much be the focus of your paper.
1. Categorizing and coding. One approach for "making sense" of data is to name and classify what you see going on in your data, sentence by sentence. This approach gives you language to talk about the ideas, actions, interactions, actors, contexts, outcomes, and other characteristics you see within your data. This is the approach we took for the analysis of the shaggy dog stories.
2. Focused analysis or naming big chunks of text or connected materials. If you apply this approach to a transcript, you might watch for where the focus of conversation shifts and mark places where the conversation moves from one focus to another. You would then give each section a name (much like coding, except that you are naming larger sections of text. The sample for finding a focus (posted to the right) uses this approach. The student researchers named the different "stories" she found in her transcript, and then selected a series of related stories (with a similar focus) for the focus of her research essay.
3. Thematic analysis. This approach is similar to the way readers approach literary texts. You identify repeating themes or ideas or phrases and look at how they work within your body of data.
Writing up your essay. During the second half of class I drew your attention to the different "parts" of a research essay that gathers and analyzes data: introduction, literature review, methods, presentation of data, analysis of data, conclusions. These sections are sometimes merged or divided into slightly different headings = but this is the general organization. Each of you did some writing to set up the statements you would make in each section - and then we generalized the kinds of "moves" you make in each section. You can look at the research essays we read as models - or view research essays in journals like Computers and Composition or The Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy (through the Kean Library databases).
For next week:
Blog 20: Post your draft research essay so far.
In class you will be giving presentations on your project. In your presentation you will:
- identify your research question
- talk about what other researchers have written about your project
- point out what your project adds to this area of research and state why it is important
- describe your method for collecting and analyzing your data
- present your findings
- and state your conclusions (as they relate to your research question and the importance of your project to research in the field)
Our purpose for these presentations is to provide you with feedback for your project so you can strengthen it before you turn it in for your grade, the following week. I will be assessing your talks as a way to evaluate the effectiveness of the teaching for this semester. I will use the rubric posted on the previous blog. Your grades and the scores on the rubrics will not necessarily correlate.
If you have not done so already, you should send me your data/transcripts so I will be able to help with your analysis and findings sections. If you have questions or would like to talk through your data before class, send me an email and we can set up a conference.
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